Entries this day: random_skate_stories

random skate stories

1 April 1996 (no foolin!)

My two most recent skating adventures were this past Thursday and Friday. I've skated several times since I wrote Skating Adventure Twelve, but I never typed them up. So I'll pile several adventures into one here.

Some weeks ago, we met at Fuzzies and decided somewhat arbitrarily to skate to Transco Tower, which is probably about 10 miles from Fuzzies. Soon after we began our adventure, one of my skate wheels died. More specifically, the polyurethane ripped away from the plastic hub. I still had 7 wheels, so no problem. However(!) by the time we got to Transco Tower, and skated down its garage twice, I had lost another wheel. We skated a bit beyond the tower, and at our furthest point from downtown, I was down to 5 wheels. Yikes! I lost one more on the way back.. It sure seemed like a long skate ("please, wheels, stay with me. please please") all the way back to Houston. As we were one (1) block away from Fuzzies, I was on 4 wheels, 2 on each skate (we had to move them as they ripped off so that the missing wheels were in the middle), and one of those began to rip off. I won the award of "Most Wheels Lost During One Night."

A different night, a group of us skated down the hill of "Coyote Park," so named for the bronze coyote statues around the water fountain/fall in the park. Someone put a traffic cone on one of the coyotes as we came in. We skated fast down the hill, which is a fun challenge because it is a sidewalk of miniature cobblestones, and they were a teeny bit wet. That makes it *amazingly* easy to slide off, or otherwise lose your footing and tumble (hopefully tumble on the grass). I skated down it again, faster than the first time. I slid as I made the turn near the bottom, but was able to control it and not wreck. That was fun. On the way out of the park, someone put the traffic cone in the coyote's mouth, making it look like a big megaphone. That was funny.

For the past two or three Thursday nights, there has been a band playing at Jones Plaza for "Party on the Plaza." Lots of skaters and skate boarders converge at the Plaza to talk and skate. Some "grind" on the steps. I saw Ed there this past Thursday. He is arguably the absolute *best* skater in Houston. He and I wanted to do some fun skating, while the rest of the group wanted to use up a $40 credit at a bar somewhere. So Ed and I skated around with Scott, who brought his frisbee. We played frisbee in a parking lot, making some pretty cool catches and throws (I could tell we were a bit out of practice) until Scott ripped his finger open somehow. We rested, and Scott left. Ed and I went to UH Downtown to skate the big hill there.

At the top of the hill I counted off 8 or 9 seconds and then we blazed down to the bottom, where I easily passed a van that was waiting for the light. Ed slowed down specifically and latched onto the van for a bit after it got moving. He threw himself forward as he and the van got near the next intersection. He just about flung himself into the path of a police car as it crossed in front of us. That would have been interesting.

We skated down 2 garages: First City and Luther's. We almost got kicked out of Luther's, so we went up the elevator an alternate way..

We got to my car and hung out at Ed's for a while as he showed me all his killer photos of him doing crazy awesome stuff on the half pipes. He convinced me (without much difficulty) to skate at the skate park the next day.